I think it goes without saying that I love capitalism. It’s a self-organizing system that prioritizes services meant for others, and has historically been the alternative to oppression and subjugation under communism or totalitarianism. True free market capitalism is the natural state of a free society. However, as humane as capitalism is, it can only provide relative equality of opportunity, and never equality of outcome. For socialists who don’t understand concepts like the Pareto Distribution, which explains things like wealth disparity in a free society, this can be hard to accept. Hence, the emergence of subreddits such as r/LateStageCapitalism.

r/LateStageCapitalism is an online space where socialists can discuss the evils of capitalism, and commiserate with each other about how oppressed they and their unlimited internet access are in a cutthroat capitalist economy. It is intended to be a safe space for socialist discussion, and as such, has some strict rules for posting:

Although I have been critical of socialists in the past, I was curious as to how they behave on their home turf. I was also interested to see, considering these very specific guidelines, how long an AnCap like myself would last in the group without being banned? I made it my goal not to outwardly defend capitalism and only ask objective questions about socialist ideas. Given how unclear I am on the definition of “hate speech,” and my ignorance as to what a “brocialist” is, I assumed it would only take a few hours for me to get banned anyway. So, under the guise of a non-political username, I entered the dragon’s lair.

The first thing I noticed was how most posts were based on criticisms of capitalism, rather than discussing viable alternatives. Slightly annoying, but still, not too different from the way AnCap forums like r/Anarcho_Capitalism discuss government. However, one thing that differentiated r/LateStageCapitalism from my favorite AnCap forums was that debate was forbidden. If these people had such legitimate criticisms of capitalism, wouldn’t they easily be able to stand up to scrutiny from capitalists? It appeared these socialists would rather remain in an echo chamber than stay open to outside opinions.

Unsurprisingly, it did not take me long to become “triggered” by socialist rhetoric. It was hard to resist my first impulse to comment a brazen defense of capitalism on every post, but in order for the experiment to continue, I had to be subtle. I tried to present myself as someone who was curious about socialism, and just wanted to learn based on the knowledge I already had. I tried to question the assumptions made in several posts without seeming too openly anti-socialist. Here are some of my first questions, which seem to have been passed over by the auto-mod destroying angel.

On a post about the tyranny of the 1%:

On a post blaming capitalism for national parks charging entry fees:

Some of my other comments were quietly taken down by the auto-mod, including this explanation of the Pareto distribution and how it even applies in games of Monopoly:

On a post that mentioned gun rights, I met another anarchist, this one, an AnCom. They were actually pretty reasonable. In order to ensure I could participate in more discussions in the future, I decided to do what I do in real life and not specify what flavor of anarchist I was. I wonder how he would have reacted if I had revealed the truth?

Surprisingly enough, I even got a few upvotes on what I said about Vladimir Lenin. I was not expecting that.

However, my comment about the 1% received a more aggravated response:

Of course he had to mention those cursed things called ‘roads.’ Naturally, I was too terrified to respond.

Just kidding, by that point, they had banned me from posting. I can only assume it was because I thought capitalism was “pretty metal.”

Unsurprisingly, the socialists were not exactly approving:

Although I didn’t last very long among the socialists of r/LateStageCapitalism, it sure was an exciting 3 hours. I do have to give them credit though, Milton Friedman in corpse paint is a pretty magnificent mental image. I might have to change my profile picture.

Socialism, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” Its expanded definition includes its position in Marxist theory as well: the transitional phase between Capitalism and Communism. It is a political paradigm as radical as it is divisive, truly testing a believer’s faith in the collective.

Generally speaking, socialists justify their cause as a moral one by claiming to support the poor and disadvantaged through programs provided by the collective. In the modern political climate, socialism is generally considered to be a cause that satisfies the needs of the needy, and allies itself with the poor. However, broadly speaking, is socialism what the poor and needy really want?

Advocates of socialism likely see themselves as Karl Marx’s proletariat: the oppressed masses rising up against the oppressive downward force of capitalism. With only their labor to contribute to society, they might as well be slaves to their employers, right? Considering the economic status of most socialists, this is untrue.

In his address on how he became an anarchist, Murray Rothbard recounted this experience with fellow students at his private school: “All these extreme liberal types would be taken back and forth to school in Rolls Royce limousines…and I would trudge back and forth to this crummy apartment, increasingly individualistic and pro-capitalist.” Even in the first half of the 20th century, when Rothbard was in preparatory school, a division could be seen between the middle-class, largely unschooled supporters of capitalism, and the elite, often highly educated socialists. A similar phenomenon can be seen today in the first world; specifically the United States, Canada, and Europe.

United States maps that graph voting patterns against geography reveal that rural areas tend to swing more to the right, while more populated, urban areas swing left in terms of politics. Especially in the US, this creates a divide between two groups that see each other very differently than they see themselves. While rural conservatives tend to view liberal voters as government-loving pansies, urban liberals tend to portray their right-wing counterparts as ignorant and racist. However, there is an inherent problem in these conclusions, especially for socialists. How can they claim to support the oppressed proletariat while at the same time disparaging the ignorant trailer-park masses? If those people are not America’s proletariat, who is? If first-world socialists took a step back to examine the economic status of people in America, they might discover that the poor might not want socialism after all.

This assertion brings up a valid point from a left-wing perspective. Wouldn’t this data also prove that socialists are generally more educated than libertarians and conservatives? That would be correct. However, education is not necessarily a gauge of how correct someone’s political beliefs can be. In fact, education is an indicator of economic privilege. Students who turn to socialism in college tend to be insulated from the economic systems around them. Many pay for their education through grants from the government or their parents’ money, eliminating much of the intense pressure of the workplace. As media sourceson both sides of the aisle point out, it is mainly the rich who have the opportunity to ponder the benefits of socialism. The poor are too busy working.

But considering these lower-class Americans do know that socialism exists, why do so many of them refuse to accept it? Do they truly not believe it would help them? In order to answer this question, we must take a look at the poor communities that have been more supportive of socialist policies. For example, liberals often consider themselves advocates for minorities, and are so accepted as such that all ethnic minorities in America are more likely to vote for left-wing candidates. Therefore, cities with a high minority population tend to elect more left-leaning political officials. These cities also tend to have the highest crime and poverty rates in America, with St. Louis, Detroit, and Flint leading the list.

It is in situations like these that, to secure the continuity of their political narrative, the left can be just as racially discriminatory as the right. Instead of admitting that their policies may be responsible for a continued cycle of poverty in minority communities, leftists would rather claim that minorities are just less capable due to racial discrimination. While racism may not be an entirely unrelated factor, it certainly does not provide the whole story, and by using these people as their pawns, these socialist lawmakers subject them to more economic disadvantage than they otherwise would receive. So even for the poor who do support socialism, things don’t pan out in the long term. If anything, the high taxes and webs of restrictive laws created by these administrations only serve to perpetuate racial discrimination in America.

But what of the socialists who do not fall into any of these categories? The middle-class adults who supported Bernie Sanders? The political outliers? The reality is, compared to the rest of the world, they are still the 1%. They will experience privileges that the vast majority of people never will. While the people of socialist Venezuela are now forced to breed rabbits for food, these first-world socialists enjoy access to the largest variety of commodities the world has ever known. Even while occupying this place of extreme economic privilege, the socialists of America and Europe choose to compare themselves to the only people on earth richer than them. Perhaps this is easier than admitting that, in the broad scope of things, they are not the oppressed proletariat. Their privilege guarantees their undeniable status as the bourgeoise.

Considering Radical Capitalist’s previous articles, it comes as no surprise to me that they would take such a tolerant stance towards ethno-nationalism. At its core, the article is right in one way: libertarians believe in freedom of association, and as long as it is never becomes violent in nature, there is nothing we can morally do to prevent white nationalists, or any other type of racially discriminatory group from existing in a libertarian society.

However, as a person who often finds myself in the uncomfortable position of having to defend libertarianism against accusations of racism, articles like this do nothing to help my cause. Therefore, I would like to look at this issue from the opposite side. Though there is nothing unlibertarian about white nationalism, there is also nothing white nationalist about libertarianism.

I want to make one thing clear from the very beginning: I think racism and its practice in ethno-nationalism are ultimately useless and detrimental to society. This is my personal stance. However, as I have previously mentioned on this blog, libertarianism, and more specifically, anarcho-capitalism are “thin” political philosophies. They are concerned with economics and non-aggression, and leave the rest up to the individual. That means that in a libertarian society, there might be white nationalists, but there would also be black nationalists, racial diversity advocates, feminists, mens’ rights activists, and even communists. That’s right, even people with views directly antithetical to libertarianism would be allowed to live in a libertarian society as long as they abided by the non-aggression policy.

The positive side of this is that, in a libertarian society, discrimination-based movements are effectively neutered by virtue of the non-aggression policy. The worst they can do is cut off their association with a specific race, something most people in society frown upon anyway. Any racial violence these groups would commit would be met with punishment or retaliation just like any other NAP violation. The de-clawed version of white nationalism takes away some of its negative aspects, but I, and most other people in a libertarian society would still find it morally reprehensible. The proportion of white nationalists to non-white nationalists is likely to be similar to what we have in modern America. The KKK is allowed to exist, but its members account for .00002% of the population (by the generous estimate of the SPLC), and the organization is almost universally despised. Our societal opposition to racial hate groups is not informed by government, and as has been proven recently, people are so wary of racism and nationalism that they ensure people lose their jobs if they are accused of it.

Still, although the Radical Capitalist article, at least in its title, is true, I fail to see how it does anything but divide the Libertarian movement. Out of all the subjects he could choose, Ethan Chan chose this one while representing libertarianism on a libertarian blog. Unsurprisingly, most things are not “unlibertarian.” Chan could have written an article called “There is Nothing Unlibertarian About Pickles,” and still have been right. He chose white nationalism as his subject deliberately to defend its values from a libertarian perspective. By doing so, he is doing the same thing as Stefan Molyneux. He is taking advantage of the simplicity of libertarianism to attach his own opinions and beliefs. While Chan said, “There is Nothing Unlibertarian about White Nationalism,” if he wanted to be truly objective, he could have said “White Nationalism and Libertarianism Have Nothing to do with Each Other.”

I cannot claim that Ethan Chan is not within his right to do this. He is allowed to support whatever he wants as a libertarian. However, that does not mean that I will not speak up when I see an article that begs its readers to conflate libertarianism with white nationalism. I am quite suspicious of Chan’s claims that libertarianism is not opposed to all forms of collectivism. He claims that libertarians who support such things as organized religions and western values should have no issue with ethno-nationalism as well. It is here that I would draw a clear distinction between those two things.

Organized religions, like companies, are voluntary hierarchies built upon the natural human need for spiritual enrichment. This is their product, and it is usually give away for free provided members voluntarily donate to them. Christianity-based Western values emphasize the autonomy and responsibility of the individual, in the same way libertarianism does. This is why so many Christians tend to be Libertarians or Conservatives. This is a very different thing from ethno-nationalism, which collectivizes people based on the arbitrary characteristic of their skin color and where they were born. This practice forms the “organic nations” described by Rothbard himself as collectivist and unlibertarian. Though there is disagreement on this in the libertarian community, it doesn’t mean that any one person is right.

Unlike many other political philosophies, libertarians cannot and should not consider themselves as part of a collective in regards to politics. One of the cornerstones of libertarianism is praxeology, the science of human action, which claims that group action must be understood in terms of individual actions. So when one libertarian steps forward to defend white nationalism, it is important to remember his view starts and ends only with him. The opinion of one libertarian is not the opinion all libertarians accept.

As far as where I personally stand, I reject concepts of ethno-nationalism. They fail to unite people on anything that is actually meaningful, but consider the circumstances of their birth more important than the actions they choose to make in their lives. This counters the voluntaryist principles that libertarianism is built around, and therefore, I do not believe that nationalist movements have any conscionable place within it. At the very least, the two are unrelated and should not ever be conflated. Saying this doesn’t make me a bleeding heart left-libertarian as Chan might say, it just makes me a decent human being.

Ah, Stefan Molyneux. Professed anarcho-capitalist, men’s rights activist, and purveyor of the most insane concepts in the right wing sphere. He claims forgiveness is useless, all negative societal behaviors are the result of early childhood abuse, and the family itself is a system of said abuse. As one of the internet’s most outspoken AnCaps, he really sets the standard for what a lot of people think about the philosophy. Thanks to Molyneux and people like him, many people see AnCaps as radicals so insane, even the Libertarian party rejects them. However, pointing to Molyneux as the example for how most AnCaps behave would be like showing moderate Christians this video from the Westboro Baptist Church and saying “This is what you guys believe, right?” Unfortunately for more rational libertarians, our political stance does tend to attract the crazies. As Murray Rothbard said, “marginal movements attract marginal people.”

Perhaps addressing the internet’s most insane anarcho-capitalist would be considered reaching for low-hanging fruit, but as someone devoted to the core principles of anarchism and the free market, I feel it is my duty to separate myself, and anarcho-capitalism, from someone who I believe does not actually support it. Molyneux can call himself an AnCap, but his more radical beliefs prove contrary to the individualist core of the philosophy. His conspiracy theories are just one case in a larger problem within libertarianism. Because it is a “thin” political philosophy, people tend to connect their own personal views to it, even if those personal views prove to be destructive.

Here is an excerpt from Molyneux’s treatise on the family. It is here that his least individualist beliefs rear their ugly heads. Take this quote, for example:

“You are told to repair things with your parents, but that is an impossible task—a complete waste of time that will also make you crazy. Since they hurt you when you were young, you cannot fix the relationship. To make the point with an extreme example, if you are raped by a man, you cannot cure him of his desire to rape. Maybe someone else can, but you cannot. Since your parents bullied or bribed you into blind obedience, you cannot help them become better people. Maybe someone else can. A therapist perhaps. But not you. You have no hope, since their guilt about how they treated you will always muck up any attempt at honest communication.

And really, it is impossible to forgive someone who has bullied a child. Forgiveness is for repairable events, like being distracted or breaking a vase. A bad childhood cannot be repaired or returned intact. Where restitution is impossible, forgiveness is impossible. Don’t even try.

Does this sound too radical? Do you think it extreme for me to say that almost all parents are horribly bad? Perhaps it is. However, if you look at the state of the world—the general blindness and the slow death of our liberties—the challenge you take on by disagreeing with me is this: if it’s not the parents, what is it?

Either the world is not sick, or parents are. Because, as my wife says, it all starts with the family. If you want to perform the greatest service for political liberty, all you have to do is turf all of your unsatisfying relationships. Parents, siblings, spouse, it doesn’t matter.”

Could there be anything more contradictory than a so-called individualist anarchist claiming that the power wielded by an abusive parent is so great, it is beyond the individual’s control to forgive or repair? That there are some relationships so damaged, it is better to cut them off than work to fix them, or else you will forever be a victim? Additionally, how can he reasonably blame the political beliefs of the children on the actions of the parents? A true individualist would reason that each man, regardless of his upbringing, is responsible for his own beliefs. If anything is to blame for the “slow death of our liberties,” I would claim it is the entitlement complex of the individuals asking for restrictive government policies, not the abusive nature of their parents.

Even more outrageously, Molyneux provides no defense for his claim that bad parenting is the cause of increasingly oppressive political motions. His “proof” for this is that politics are getting worse and everyone’s parents are terrible, and because these two events are happening at the same time, they must be related. A classic case of correlation not implying causation.

All the problems with how Molyneux makes his argument aside, the idea itself is unsound. He is just as misguided as anyone else who justifies morally reprehensible behavior for the sake of politics. By saying that it is politically justifiable to abandon your family, he forgets the reason why most people support political philosophies in the first place. I’m not an AnCap because it sounds edgy, or even because it would benefit me personally. I’m an AnCap because I want everyone to be free and have their best shot at success. I believe in the power of the individual. That’s why I don’t like it when people like Stefan Molyneux make political statements that are anti-human. To me, you believe in politics because of people. I think Molyneux can say whatever he wants, but he would be wrong to connect his philosophy to anarcho-capitalism. Not only does it have nothing to do with anarchism or capitalism, but his theories would actually be detrimental to a stateless society.

Many people mischaracterize anarchism as an abandonment of morality. They presume that since anarchists don’t believe in laws, they must therefore condone the violence and abuse that laws are made to prevent. These people fail to realize that just like everyone else, us anarchists believe what we do because we care very much about morality. In fact, anarchism couldn’t exist without it.

It is not an opposition to order that separates anarchists from statists. It is an opposition to a government monopoly on order. Anarchists challenge the paradigm that justice is something only the state can provide. From an outside point of view, the concept of government as a force to stop crime seems absurd. Normal, moral people don’t need lawmakers to tell them not to rape, murder, or steal, and immoral people who do these things already don’t hold themselves accountable to society or the law. Therefore, it would be irrational to claim that declaring something illegal on paper would stop those immoral people from doing it.

So what would anarchists offer in favor of a state justice system? In order to answer that question, we must look at what actually keeps people from committing crimes. As has been proven in numerous studies, a person’s family situation is the single greatest indicator as to whether or not they will go on to be a criminal. The statistics are dramatic: according to studies from the U.S. Census Bureau, children from broken homes are 5 times more likely to commit crime, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and according to the U.S. Justice Department, correlations between single-parent homes and juvenile delinquency have existed since the 19th century. According to this data, the best way to reduce crime would not be putting more laws on the books, but protecting family structures.

Not only is the family our most effective defense against crime, but it is also the best way to raise future generations of responsible people. Statistics show that children with married parents perform significantly better in school, and show more responsible behavior. According to psychologist Oliver James, families are essential in teaching children how to be functioning members of society. He says, “We start off as Barbarians and what makes us civilised is being loved and looked after.” and goes on to prove that children who spend large amounts of time in daycares rather than with their parents are more likely to exhibit violent behavior. YouTube political commentator Dave Cullen takes this a step further, claiming that the rise of millenial social justice warriors is due to the disintegration of the family. Parents with little time for their children feel guilty for not being there, and are more likely to compensate for this by spoiling them. As a consequence, children who learn early on to capitalize off their parents’ guilt ultimately learn to do the same in regards to government and society. This is one explanation for the millenial generation’s tendency towards socialism and emotion-based social justice politics.

To summarize, all evidence on this subject points in the opposite direction of Molyneux’s claims. By telling people to abandon their families, he advocates for the destruction of our best alternative to state-run justice, and if anything, it is a lack of family involvement, not a surplus, that turns children on to oppressive political philosophies. As someone who came from an unstable family himself, who certainly has access to the large amount of research done on the subject, Molyneux should be able to make a distinction between those families that are abusive and those that are not, but he chooses not to. He is wrong in every way he could be wrong, and has no place connecting ideas like this to anarcho-capitalism. He can’t even seem to develop his claims beyond grand assumptions about society.

So Stefan, if you’re out there, you ought to consider that maybe there’s a reason even other AnCaps are disagreeing with you these days. It probably has less to do with society and more to do with your ideas. It’s not anarchism, capitalism, or opposition to child abuse that people are opposed to. It’s your misrepresentation of all of those things.